CHAPTER 116: CHAPTER 116; FIRST STEP IN REVENGE (D)

Lu Zeyan studied his reflection for a minute long....

She was right, the makeup had worked small miracles, transforming exhaustion into determination, stress into strength, creating exactly the image Wang Jing had demanded.

He looked tired but resolved, worn but unbroken.

A knock sounded at the door, pulling him from his thoughts.

"Mr. Lu? Miss Shuyin’s wardrobe is ready. Would you like to approve?"

"Send her in," he called, bracing himself without quite knowing why.

When Shuyin entered a moment later, Lu Zeyan’s breath caught in his throat despite every intention to remain unmoved.

She was wearing a simple dress in pale blue, the cut modest without being matronly, elegant without any trace of flashiness.

Her black hair had been styled in soft waves that framed her face like a halo, emphasizing rather than hiding its unusual color.

Minimal jewelry caught the light subtly at her ears and throat.

Natural makeup transformed her jade eyes from alien to unique, striking rather than strange, beautiful rather than unsettling.

She looked like a survivor who’d kept her dignity through hell itself.

Like someone who deserved justice, who’d earned sympathy, who could be believed.

Wang Jing was a genius; this image would play perfectly to the cameras, would tug at heartstrings, open wallets, and shift public opinion like a lever moving the world.

"What do you think?" Shuyin asked, turning slowly to give him the full effect. She was ample-bodied and perfectly shaped.

This was the woman Zeyan had fallen in love with years ago... And he could still feel his heartbeat race.

There was something in her voice he couldn’t quite identify, uncertainty, perhaps, or calculation disguised as vulnerability.

"Is this appropriate?"

"It’s perfect," Lu Zeyan admitted with complete honesty, the words escaping before he could consider their implications.

"You look... You look like someone people will want to believe."

Something flickered across her expression, too quick to identify but leaving ripples in its wake.

"Is that all this is? Making people believe?"

The question held more weight than its simple words suggested, and Lu Zeyan found himself answering with more truth than he’d intended to reveal.

"Isn’t that what everything is? Reality is just what enough people agree on."

Shuyin tilted her head, studying him with those unnerving jade eyes that seemed to see straight through flesh and bone into the twisted machinery of his thoughts.

"Is that what you told yourself when you all had framed me? That if enough people believed I was guilty, I would be?"

The accusation came soft, almost gentle, but it hit like a physical blow to his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs.

"Shuyin...."

"It’s fine," she interrupted smoothly, raising one hand in a gesture that was simultaneously dismissive and forgiving.

"I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m just... trying to understand. How could you do what you did? How anyone could. I never expected that from you... You of all the people..."

Lu Zeyan found he couldn’t hold her gaze, his eyes dropping to study the floor tiles with sudden intense interest.

"I thought I was protecting my future. Making hard choices. Doing what was necessary."

The words tasted like ashes in his mouth, but they were all he had.

"And now?"

The question hung in the air between them like a blade suspended by a thread.

"Now I’m paying for it," he said quietly, the admission costing him something he couldn’t name.

"With money, with reputation, with everything I built. So maybe there is justice after all."

"Maybe," Shuyin agreed, her tone maddeningly neutral.

"Or maybe this is just the beginning."

Before Lu Zeyan could ask what she meant by that cryptic statement, Wang Jing’s voice boomed from the outer office with the force of a drill sergeant rallying troops.

"One hour! I need everyone in position in one hour! Let’s move, people!"

Shuyin smiled then, small and enigmatic, an expression that revealed nothing while promising everything.

"Time to face the cameras."

"Together," Lu Zeyan heard himself say, offering his arm in a gesture that was half genuine courtesy, half calculated performance for any watching eyes.

"We face this together."

Shuyin’s hand came to rest on his arm, her touch light as a bird, her jade eyes glowing faintly in the bathroom’s bright fluorescent lighting.

"Together," she echoed, and the word sounded almost like a promise, or perhaps a threat.

As they walked back into the main office, the PR team immediately swarmed around them like worker bees attending their queen, voices overlapping with final instructions, touch-ups, and last-minute adjustments.

Wang Jing barked orders with military precision while Feng Ting coordinated logistics on three phones simultaneously, and junior assistants scurried back and forth with documents and water bottles and whatever else might be needed in the coming performance.

The office had transformed into something resembling a war room, everyone moving with the urgent efficiency of soldiers preparing for battle.

Lu Zeyan stood at the center of it all feeling strangely detached, as if he were watching the scene unfold from a great distance.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap of his own making, that every choice he’d made in the last few hours, every concession granted, every agreement signed, every moment of believing Shuyin’s carefully crafted performance, had been exactly what she wanted, exactly what she’d planned for.

The realization settled over him like a shroud, cold and suffocating.

He wasn’t controlling this situation at all.

He was dancing on strings he couldn’t see, and the puppet master was the woman with jade eyes standing beside him, her small hand resting on his arm with deceptive lightness, her expression perfectly crafted for public consumption, her thoughts hidden behind eyes that reflected light like polished stone.

By the time he figured out her endgame, he knew with absolute certainty, it would be far too late to escape.

The trap would have already closed, the jaws already locked around him, and all his money and influence and desperate maneuvering would mean nothing against whatever plan she’d set in motion.